Search Results: Lin Hatfield Dodds

Children of the 1980s are likely to have been cared for full-time by a parent. But most of them are now combining parenting with paid employment as they become parents today. The Productivity Commission has been asked to make childcare and early learning services affordable and flexible, to ensure children don't get in the way of workforce participation. But the other priority, which is perhaps easier to ignore, has to do with the quality of care and learning offered.

Australia's welfare system was designed for an era where men were the breadwinners and women worked outside the home only until marriage. Australia is a different place now, and the McClure review is an opportunity to update and simplify the system. But it must not confuse short-term cost-cutting with efficiency.

Research indicates online sports gambling is an escalating problem that particularly impacts young men. The South Australian Premier has already made a good start, but there are still practical steps we can take at state and federal level to reduce the risk.

The 2013 Federal Budget is framed around a national disability insurance scheme, education reform, and welfare to work focused welfare spending. The jewel in the crown has to be DisabilityCare, which will make a significant difference in the daily lives of nearly half a million Australians.

There is a lot not to admire about the business practices of Rupert Murdoch, but he stands tall as an elder who is able to maintain his stature in the face of great challenge. The Federal Government's new aged care blueprint has the potential to ensure that more Australians will retain their dignity in old age.

A third of taxpayer-funded superannuation concessions — around $10 billion a year — are directed to the top 5 per cent of income earners. People living on or below the poverty line get no such support. This week's Tax Forum must ask: Are we proud of how we redistribute our national wealth?

The GST appears unfair, as it hits the poor much harder than it does the wealthy. But that's due to the way it is implemented, and it doesn't need to be that way. The St Vincent de Paul Society would like to see it increased, but with a more sophisticated and fairer compensation mechanism.

The Government has crafted a historic package of reforms: driving long-run reductions in carbon pollution, simplifying personal tax and making it fairer, and reducing poverty traps and barriers to work. It's exactly the kind of smart and gutsy approach we want to see from this Government.

Prime Minister Gillard's speech to the Sydney Institute last week, and Tony Abbot’s policy announcements two weeks ago, drew unanimous response from the community sector — that getting people into work is a sound objective, but it's harder than it looks.

Currently the churches and the Greens have a mostly dysfunctional relationship. More than a few Greens owe their passion for social justice to a strong Christian upbringing. But while they both want values to triumph over pragmatism in government, they regard each other as the enemy.

It is difficult for Prime Ministers to impose short term pain for long term gain if they want to be re-elected. But Gillard faces a different situation because the Independents are her masters, not the 2013 voters.

The levy announced yesterday is progressive, precisely the type of approach that social justice principles and practicality dictate. But it is a one off response and another example of why we need to fix Australia’s taxation system for the long term.